1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a healing abutment (such as, e.g., a gingiva former), also referred to as a transgingival healing abutment, and a method for producing a design of a healing abutment (such as, e.g., a gingiva former), in which the healing abutment is attached temporarily to an implant during a healing phase of an implant instead of a customized final implant replacement. Gingival tissue in a preparation area is shaped in a desired manner with the aid of the healing abutment during the healing phase of the implant. In this process, it is important that gingival tissue extending from a shoulder of the inserted implant to an edge thereof assumes a shape that can accommodate the final implant replacement without any gaps or pressure sores and that forms a gingival line on the final implant replacement, namely a break-through line formed on the implant replacement by the gingival tissue, which gingival line coincides with that located on the teeth adjacent to the implant replacement. This is desirable particularly in the region of the front teeth, for esthetic reasons.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, a healing abutment having a standardized geometry has hitherto been screwed onto a freshly inserted implant, where the healing abutment remains during the healing phase of the implant. The term “geometry” is to be understood to mean the outer shape in this context.
The purpose of the healing abutment is to shape the gums as far as possible to give a desired emergence profile following insertion of the final implant replacement, that is to say, the gingival tissue above the implant assumes a shape that matches the gingival line of the other teeth.
It is known from DE 20 2007 005 474 U1 that a healing abutment made of PEEK can be easily adapted and customized mechanically. The first feature of the healing abutment that is customized is the color thereof that is adjusted to match that of the patient's gingival tissue and that imparts a more esthetically appealing appearance to the healing abutment. The above patent specification also discloses that the occlusal portion of the healing abutment can be configured so as to be at an angle in order to make it possible to correct the dental implant axis required for the respective direction of insertion, and to match the circumference of the cylindrical region of the healing abutment to the spatial disposition of the tooth position. Thus the gingiva is shaped during the healing phase in such a way that at least the axis and circumference of the developing cylinder correspond approximately to the axis and circumference of the dental replacement to be subsequently inserted in the region of the gingival tissue.
Moreover, EP 2 011 448 A1 discloses a healing abutment that conditions the oral mucosa in the region of the implant in terms of its shape and position during the healing phase for the prosthetic replacement to be subsequently attached in that the shape and the spatial location of the conditioning surfaces of the healing abutment coincide as precisely as possible with those of the prosthetic replacement in the region of transition to the implant. For this purpose, the contour of the conditioning surface is matched to the inclination of the central axis of the prosthetic replacement. Furthermore, the conditioning surfaces can be provided, in certain areas thereof, with cambers in order to correspond as precisely as possible to the shape of the prosthetic replacement.
Furthermore, it is known from “das dental labor”, No. 4/2008, pp 441-450, that a direct transfer of a manually generated customized shape of a healing abutment to a subsequent final implant replacement is possible only when the final implant replacement is likewise fabricated manually.
It would be possible to directly scan the gingival profile up to the implant following the removal of the healing abutment and then to adopt these data for the final implant replacement. However, since it is difficult to scan the gingival tissue optically, the precision with which it is possible to achieve a coincidence between the shape of the gingiva formed by the healing abutment to the shape of the final implant replacement is unsatisfactory.
DE 103 00 301 A1 discloses a further possible way of fitting an implant following the insertion thereof. Instead of a healing abutment, an automatically fabricated superstructure comprising a final abutment and a reduced crown is attached to the implant, the reduced crown being one of reduced size so as to be out of occlusion with the opposing tooth. Thus the reduced crown experiences no transferred forces other than residual forces occurring during the process of chewing, so that the implant is not subjected to stresses. Due to the digital creation of the superstructure, it is very easy to first design the functionally correct crown with the required dimensions and then to compute a size reduction of this crown to ensure that it is reliably disoccluded.
Since the final abutment is in this case fitted to the implant, the gingival tissue in the region adjacent to the implant can shape itself as required for the final implant replacement, and also the edge, that is to say, the break-through of the reduced crown through the gingival tissue will be very similar to the developing emergence profile of the final implant replacement.
However, the disadvantage of this procedure is that, unlike a healing phase during which the implant is covered, the gingival tissue can only grow closer to the initial temporary replacement, i.e., the final abutment and the reduced crown, and there is thus a risk of infections being caused by undesirable foreign bodies coming between the gingival tissue and the initial temporary replacement.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a healing abutment and a method for producing a design of a healing abutment that solves the problems mentioned above.